TORONTO — Premier Doug Ford told the Toronto Regional Board of Trade on Thursday that Prime Minister Mark Carney was right to walk away from a U.S. trade deal, calling the terms “an absolutely terrible deal that would have destroyed our economy from top to bottom.”Ford said the package would have hurt workers, undercut Canadian sovereignty, and done lasting damage to firms that employ hundreds of thousands of people in Ontario. “No deal is better than a bad deal,” he said. “If you don’t stand up to a bully, he’ll continue to bully.”Ontario will keep answering President Donald Trump “tariff for tariff, dollar for dollar,” Ford said, and Queen’s Park has to be ready to take pain. That pain is already on Ontario shelves and shop floors. Queen’s Park is also widening the $1-billion Protect Ontario Financing Program and the $150-million Ontario Together Trade Fund so firms facing the next U.S. duties and import bans can borrow for payroll, leases and utilities. Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy put the province’s running tariff-support bill at nearly $30 billion — with no public draw-down, cap or sunset attached.The extra eligibility takes effect as Washington’s next measures land: 50% duties on certain steel and aluminum products, dairy, furniture and paper on Sept. 15, and import bans on most Canadian alcohol, some dairy products and motorcycles above 800cc on Sept. 29..Ottawa’s counter-tariffs of 15%, 25% and 50% on $27.6 billion in U.S. goods took effect Sept. 8. University of Calgary economist Trevor Tombe has put the latest U.S. round at almost 90,000 jobs nationwide, including about 36,000 in Ontario.Trump has also threatened 50% duties on Canadian cars, trucks, parts and steel on Jan. 1, 2027. Ford did not put a price on what the walk-away costs a household this month.Ford praised Alberta Premier Danielle Smith for pushing a pipeline he said is needed for energy sovereignty, so Canada is not forced to move oil and gas through the United States. East-west lines, a route to Asian markets, and a connection to Irving Oil so that refinery stops importing foreign crude “should've have been done 20, 30 years ago,” he said.He said his government has not raised taxes and will not, and he argued some people are already working half the year for government at a 51% combined rate. Personal and corporate taxes have to come down, he said, so firms cannot justify going anywhere else. He urged Ottawa to make the federal gas-tax cut permanent, as Ontario already has, at 10.7 cents a litre..Protectionism “does not work” in the United States or anywhere else, he said. Ontario has signed internal-trade agreements with 10 provinces and territories and dropped its exceptions. He put the prize of tearing down those barriers at about $200 billion in GDP, or a 4% to 6% lift. Treat tariffs the way Ontario treated Covid, he said — get government out of the way and move fast.Alberta and Saskatchewan have already refused to put oil, potash and uranium on Carney’s bargaining table. Ford praised the pipes; he did not say Ontario wants that oil used as leverage now.“We have the resources, we have the ingenuity, we have the skilled people,” Ford said. “You’re all part of Team Canada.”
